Sense-Making Through Uncertainty: Stories, Signals, and Swarms with Dave Snowden

What if the way you lead your family holds the secret to leading organizations through uncertainty? In this episode of Humanity at Scale, host Bruce Temkin speaks with Dave Snowden about complexity leadership and leading under uncertainty. Drawing on complexity science and the Cynefin framework, Dave explains why traditional planning fails in complex adaptive systems and how sense-making in organizations enables better organizational decision-making. From swarm intelligence to narrative at scale, he shares practical approaches to navigating ambiguity, detecting weak signals, and shaping resilient cultures through adaptive systems management rather than rigid transformation.

What if the way you lead your family holds the secret to leading organizations through uncertainty?

In this episode of Humanity at Scale, host Bruce Temkin speaks with Dave Snowden about complexity leadership and leading under uncertainty. Drawing on complexity science and the Cynefin framework, Dave explains why traditional planning fails in complex adaptive systems and how sense-making in organizations enables better organizational decision-making. From swarm intelligence to narrative at scale, he shares practical approaches to navigating ambiguity, detecting weak signals, and shaping resilient cultures through adaptive systems management rather than rigid transformation.

Here are some of the topics that Bruce and Dave explore:

How to recognize when your organization is a complex adaptive system
The "Do the Next Right Thing" strategy for replacing long-term vision statements
Why sense-making is more valuable than perfect information

How to leverage informal networks and "rhizomic" organizational structures
The critical difference between human abductive thinking and AI inductive thinking
How to shape environments where virtue becomes easier and vice becomes harder

David Snowden is a leadership strategist and complexity scientist renowned for creating the Cynefin Framework, a decision-making model that helps leaders recognize when problems can be analyzed versus explored in real time. With a background spanning NGOs, technology implementation, and global institutions, Dave has spent decades studying how people and organizations make decisions under uncertainty.

Episode Resources:

Dave Snowden on LinkedIn
Cynefin Company Website
Bruce Temkin on LinkedIn
Humanity at Scale on Apple Podcasts
Humanity at Scale on Spotify
Humanity at Scale on YouTube